Vinny Lingham

In 2003, Lingham founded incuBeta, an investment holding company that engages in the ownership, management, and support of online marketing companies in various stages of development, with offices in the US, UK and Cape Town. Also in 2003, Lingham founded Clicks2Customers, a subsidiary of incuBeta that provides search engine marketing software and services. Lingham served as the CEO of both companies.

Lingham was selected as an Endeavor Entrepreneur in 2006 and a Young Global Leader in 2009 with the World Economic Forum. Endeavor is a global non-profit that selects and supports high-impact entrepreneurs in emerging markets.

In 2007, Lingham founded Yola, a proprietary web development platform for individuals, small businesses and organizations. To date, Yola has received over $25 million in funding from Johann Rupert’s Reinet Fund.

In 2012, Lingham started Gyft, a mobile gift card company, with the backing of Google Ventures. In two years, Gyft became the leading service in the mobile gift card space and was acquired by First Data Corporation in 2014 for more than US$54m.

From 2014 to 2016, Vinny Lingham was one of the investors, or "dragons", on South Africa's Dragons' Den reality TV series. Starting in 2016, he is one of the "sharks" on the follow-up to Dragons' Den, Shark Tank South Africa. In 2017, Lingham was also an "Angel" on National Geographic's not-for-profit program Undercover Angel. Lingham is also the co-author of "I'm In: Essential Advice for Entrepreneurs".

In 2015, Lingham founded Civic, a startup that encrypts identity information on the blockchain. Civic raised in excess of US$33m in funding during its Initial Coin Offering (ICO) in June of 2017.